Tailor Made
by slashify
Summary: Mycroft and Greg on a 'business trip' in Cardiff. Mycroft may be the British Government, but can he handle Torchwood? Mostly Mystrade. Anthea has a cameo. Torchwood interactions happen offscreen. There is a hint of Jack/Ianto.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or their worlds.

This fic was written for LizzieCarlton on AO3, who inspired me with a lovely Torchwood GIF while I was thinking of Mycroft and Greg.

* * *

It was becoming more difficult by the second for Greg Lestrade to pull his eyes away from Mycroft's new suit, or more accurately the body it concealed. He knew that his... Boyfriend? No, that wasn't quite... His Mycroft had requested his presence at the tailor's hoping to get Greg some new clothes.

He had known that was the secret goal since Anthea had smirked at him from the black car that had silently pulled up in front of the hotel that morning. She went from smirking at him to raising a critical eyebrow at his free hotel drip coffee while she smirked at him. They stood, smirking and frowning respectively, in silence for a moment before Anthea reached out, maintaining eye contact, snatched his coffee, and slowly poured it out on to the pavement between them. When Greg's frown turned into more of a slightly murderous scowl, she huffed out a laugh and handed him a plain white re-usable ceramic version of a paper coffee cup wrapped with a cloth coffee sleeve covered in tiny umbrellas. He made a truly indecent sound deep in his throat after sipping the lovely espresso, then sighed.

"Where?"

"Tailor."

They both smirked.

Mycroft assured him that he had urgent business there, and that Greg was there in a professional capacity, but that hadn't stopped them from sharing a hotel suite, or waking up blissfully naked together that morning before Mycroft scuttled off presumedly to save the universe. Greg couldn't even remember the night before. Business trip, indeed! Only Mycroft Holmes would go clear to Cardiff for a trip to the tailor.

Now here he sat, after tuning out while the other men discussed pocket squares, watching Mycroft turn this way and that in his new suit with an increasingly dry mouth.

Remembering and taking a sip of his espresso, Greg turned to the mirror, trying to imagine what Mycroft saw in it, how the man saw himself. Oh.

The dark-haired young man standing by a display of ties broke the eye contact they had accidentally made in the mirror, his hand brushing a red tie. He looked back at Greg, glanced at Mycroft, and offered Greg a small, almost shy smile.

Greg had a flash of something in his mind, an image of this young man chasing after a billowing coat. Shaking his head, he put his focus back on Mycroft, figuring that his mind was just filling in Sherlock where the man didn't belong.  
A fond, content smile made its way onto Greg's face as he coveted the government's bum.

* * *

Ianto slipped into the SUV and looked at Jack. He hoped that if he stuck to talking about the matter at hand, Jack wouldn't ask him about his father, the 'master tailor' or the 'friend of his father's' who was currently tending to Mr. Holmes. The man had been the inspiration for Ianto's fictional father. He remembered the first time they'd met, Ianto running into the tailor's shop to escape some boys who were giving him a hard time...

"Everything's fine, Jack. Retcon looks like its holding, and DI Lestrade doesn't seem to be favoring his ankle, so I think that thing we picked up last week actually does heal broken bones."

"That thing we picked up? Oh, Ianto, that just won't do. It needs a name, something snappy. What do you think?"

Ianto placed his hand lightly on Jack's thigh.

"I'll think about it."


	2. Chapter 2

Mycroft waited until Gregory was asleep to slip into the next room and make the call.

"Ah, Mycroft. I was wondering if we would be hearing from you while you're here."

"Don't be cute with me, Jack Harkness," Jack took a breath, most likely to comment that he couldn't help being cute. Mycroft rolled his eyes at himself for giving Jack that opening and continued, "even if I did not know when I've been drugged, I certainly could not have missed your Mr. Jones at my tailor's today."

"Yeah, Ianto does turn heads everywhere he goes..." Jack's sigh was wistful, Mycroft's was long-suffering.

"I knew him long before you were aware of his existence. Even if he has forgotten me, I have not forgotten him. Now I don't require a full debriefing of yesterday's events, that would be a waste of retcon, but I would like to know how Gregory fared." Mycroft crept to the door of the bedroom and peered in at the silver-haired man. He had curled up in Mycroft's usual space and was drooling quietly on Mycroft's pillow. Mycroft smiled softly.

"Greg was fine, great even. Just like last time. I wish you'd bring him around, you know. I wish you would come around for real. Stop this retcon nonsense and get back in the game. You know you miss it." Mycroft heard a snore come through the line. He couldn't believe that Jack would have this conversation while in bed with Ianto. The younger man knew that Mycroft had once been involved with Torchwood, of course, but not in what capacity. He had a feeling that if he ever found out he would not be getting anymore smiles from Mr. Jones.

"And you know that I can't. I don't do legwork anymore, and you know perfectly well why I won't." A sharp intake of breath, and a pause, followed by the sound of a door opening and closing. That had gotten Jack out of bed, at least.

"How many times do I have to tell you that what happened to Torchwood One was not your fault?"

"It was, however, my responsibility. I cannot let something like that happen again. As for Gregory joining up, I cannot allow that either." Mycroft almost missed the pause, but it was there.

"Sentimental of you. That's good. You need to remember that's not a bad thing, Mycroft. I've seen humans fight harder for love than anything else in the universe."

"Why do you think I'm fighting you now? Once or twice is fine, but I am not letting Gregory become another body in a Torchwood morgue! Even I, who have no memories of his reaction to the truth, know that if he were able to remember he would run off without hesitation to save the world. He does it every day, and it is already hard enough without having to worry about him chasing after much worse things than human criminals."

"And how do you think Greg would react if he knew you were authorizing us to take away his memories?" Mycroft grimaced. How would Gregory react? Not very well at all, he wagered. In fact, he'd predict an umbrella theft shortly followed by an incidence of vandalism centered in Mycroft's kitchen.

"You are repeating yourself, Jack. We went over this when you tried recruiting Sherlock. At least with Gregory I know you are not trying to seduce him." Jack chuckled into the phone.

"Don't be so sure. But really, think about bringing Greg around? Ianto's fond of him. We could go out to dinner, just the four of us." Mycroft shook his head. Did Jack really think he was so uninformed?

"That could nullify the retcon and you know it. Gregory has a strong mind. I can't take the chance. Perhaps we will come back and help you avert disaster again soon, but I won't have him hunting down weevils on a regular basis."

"It didn't."

"Excuse me?"

"This time, Greg didn't remember last time. The retcon held. Just to control variables, we could wait the same amount of time and then you could bring him around for dinner. We gave him the same dose as last time." It would be interesting to see Gregory interact with Jack and Ianto in a social setting...

"I shall have to think about it and let you know when I've come to a decision."

* * *

The next morning, safely ensconced in a nondescript black car with Anthea, they headed back to London. Gregory was holding Mycroft's travel coffee mug again this morning. He made a mental note to get him one of his own, perhaps with motorbikes on the sleeve in place of umbrellas... Gregory and Anthea bickered back and forth for a while before he turned to Mycroft.

"You know, Love, a trip to the tailor is not actually a business trip. Did you work at all while we were here?"

"A bit."

Gregory and Anthea shared a grin.


End file.
